Too Much Inside
by HungryCookieMonster
Summary: "But feelings can't be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem." ― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl Would you still be considered human if you couldn't feel? Or would you just be a shadow of one? Would you try to break the barrier to be set free? Or would you stay trapped inside yourself?


**It's time to start anew! I really hope this is good...*sigh* I really need to stop being so critical of myself. I blame my third grade teacher hehe.**

 **Anyway, there may be some grammar mistakes throughout this first chapter, but just ignore them for the moment, okay?**

 **Warning: I don't own anyone but my OC's in this. Enjoy!**

* * *

It's hard to see sometimes.

The masks covering the twins' faces made it almost impossible for them to see where they were going. But they were so used to it that it didn't seem to bother them. The large buttons they used to look through gave them an advantage when it came to hiding all of their appearances. They wanted to be completely anonymous to their prey. The twins also liked their masks. The two were made for the both of them when they turned nine as part of their Halloween costumes; two different animals for two different girls. Marie, the shorter of the two girls, was the bear. Its sharp teeth and matted fur deterred many people whenever they caught a glimpse of her. The other twin, Leah, was the cat. She was fast like a feline, and just as agile. The mask had the same effect on anyone that saw her passing by. The masks were similar when it came to the teeth and matted fur, but the buttons and fur were different colors. Marie's had brown fur, which was covered in dried blood, and the buttons on hers were black. Leah's cat mask was a multitude of colors, pink and purple, and the buttons were a nice shade of blue.

The twins were nearly inseparable. They went almost everywhere together. Some of the scientists at the institution they were kept at thought that this was because one was more stable than the other. To put it more bluntly, one twin was sane while the other was not. They had no idea which girl was which, but, frankly, they didn't want to find out. It was better kept a secret between the two of them.

* * *

 _Marie cleaned off her machete with a cloth, looking down at the dead body lying at her feet. This man, no,_ thing _, tried to take a mother out of her home and away from her child's corpse. God only knows what his intentions were. And frankly Marie didn't care. She usually didn't care about the doings of Gotham citizens. She only really cared about her individual target and what they've done to be put on her list. This time her prey had gotten away. The girl would come to regret helping the woman later, but right now she just needed to get back on track._

 _She glanced at the middle-aged woman, who was watching her warily as she wiped the blood off of her weapon, and gave her a small, reassuring smile. The woman flinched back, making Marie furrow her brows in confusion. She knew her appearance must be ghastly after slicing the man in two. But, without her mask, she at least looked human. Her mask was lying two feet away from where she stood, the string having been snapped in the struggle between the man and herself. She shook her head and finished cleaning off her machete. If the woman didn't want her comfort, then so be it. She can quiver in the corner like a scared puppy all she wanted to. But, not exactly like a puppy, because Marie actually liked puppies._

" _Y-you killed him," the woman said in disbelief. Marie looked back at her, a look of disinterest present on her pale features._

" _I did," Marie replied with a small shrug, sheathing her machete behind her back and using the rag to clean her hands. The young woman slowly stood from where she crouched against the wall and made her way toward her child's dead body. Marie heard her sniffle as she bent down to pick up the small, lifeless body._

" _He killed too," the woman whimpered, holding the child close to her chest. "He killed my son."_

 _Marie stared at the woman sympathetically. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know if she should say anything. Maybe letting the woman grieve was the best choice, but she wasn't entirely sure if it was. People can do rash things when put in these types of situations. The young girl didn't want this one's blood on her hands just because she had a hunt to finish. That could wait. But this couldn't. She could tell the woman was thinking about doing something. The woman was tense, her eyes darting around the room they stood in. Marie looked around as well, seeing nothing the woman could grab. But there were windows. And they were on the sixth floor of the apartment complex._

" _Don't," Marie whispered, taking a small step toward the distraught mother. "Don't do this."_

" _Why not," the young woman demanded. "There's nothing left for me here. My son is dead!"_

 _The young girl could feel something stirring inside her chest. It was a feeling she hasn't felt in a long time. She wasn't even able to identify what the feeling was. But as she stared at the young woman in front of her, the feeling grew into something uncomfortable and made her want to throw up._

" _Do you really think your son would want you to end your own life? You can't just give up like this."_

 _The middle-aged woman smiled crookedly, tears streaming down her flushed cheeks. "Can't I? I can tell you don't actually care about what I do. You're just like that man. You. Just. Don't. Care."_

 _And with that, the young woman dropped her son's dead body and sprinted toward one of the windows._

* * *

Marie sat up with a gasp, her chest heaving and sweat beading her forehead. That dream, that awful dream, has been plaguing her for such a long time now. Those images have been haunting her for a good two months now. That's how long it's been. Two months sense that woman took her own life.

The young girl rubbed her one good eye and sighed. She hasn't been able to sleep well ever sense it happened, and it was starting to take a toll on her. Leah could tell. She always told her twin to forget about it; move on. What happened was in the past. But she couldn't just forget about such a thing. It was her first time ever seeing someone innocent die. Her first time seeing someone take their own life. She had been confused, angry, sad, and just fucked up in general. Marie didn't know why that woman's death hit her so hard. She's killed before, many times, and none of her victims have had this effect on her.

The scientists have ran tests to see what was wrong with her. They were modified a long time ago to barely feel any emotion for anyone other than their other half. It was just how they wanted them to be. But, after seeing that woman jump out the window, Marie hasn't felt the same. It was almost like it flipped a switch in her brain. Something that turned on her more human self.

The experiments caused her to lose her left eye. Not literally, but she could only see out of her right sense she liked to keep the other concealed behind an eye patch Leah had made for her. Her left eye was now black with a small yellow dot in the middle of it. She thought it was hideous, but Leah thought it was the coolest thing in the world.

She hasn't been able to leave the institute in over a month. She was only allowed to walk the grounds if her sister was with her or one of the doctors. Dr. Yan was the one that accompanied her the most often. She was the head of everything in the institute, and had raised Marie and Leah sense they arrived there. The doctor thought that Marie was just too unstable at the moment. She didn't know what the young girl would do out in the city.

"It's for the best," Dr. Yan would always say. "Not just for you, but for your sister."

Marie knew what she meant. She was just a weight Leah had to carry around; something that needed to be held up so it wouldn't fall and break. The young girl wished more than anything that she would have never stopped to help. She should have just kept on track. She should have just gotten the job done.

Outside, the stars shined and winked down from their places in heaven. Looking out at them from her bedroom window, Marie wondered if that young woman was up there with her son. They would be holding onto each other, never to let go again.

"I'm sorry," Marie whispered to the night sky. "I'm so sorry."

The bed underneath her creaked as she swung her legs from under the covers and stood with a small groan. The girl's room was small with only one bed, a small dresser, and a full bodied mirror next to the dresser. Before Leah made her the eye patch she wore over her left eye, she had covered the mirror with one of her blankets so she wouldn't have to look at herself. All the mirrors in the bathroom across the hall were covered as well. Leah never complained about it, though. She may not have known what was going through her sister's mind whenever she saw her reflection, but she could see the disgust written on her face. For three weeks the mirrors stayed covered. For three weeks Marie refused to leave her room unless it was absolutely necessary.

She stretched her arms over her head with a content sigh. The bright neon light emitting off of her alarm clock sitting on the dresser caught her attention: 4:30 AM. Still two hours to go before anyone else is awake. Leah wouldn't be awake until late in the afternoon. Her sister liked to call it 'catching necessary z's'. Marie wished she could be that way; but, with the nightmares constantly plaguing her mind that just wasn't an option.

She made her way toward her small dresser, opening one of the drawers and pulling out a small journal. The brown leather was cracked in some spots and the pages were wrinkled and yellowed. All signs of old age and overuse. Marie loved to write on her down time; mostly just her thoughts and her dreams. Sometimes she would write a little poetry, but that was only on special occasions.

With her back resting against the wooden headrest of her bed, she opened the journal to a clean page. The black fountain pen she always used rested between her fingers, poised and ready to mark the yellow page:

 _'Someday I'll forget about you. I'll forget what you looked like, what you were wearing, the way you fell like a bird who forgot how to fly; everything. I don't want to remember anymore. It hurts too much._

 _It shouldn't hurt at all. I shouldn't be able to feel anything for you. But I do. And it's absolutely unbearable.'_

* * *

It's hard to see sometimes.

Marie's eyesight becomes foggy sometimes. It hurts. Dr. Yan always tells her not to worry. It'll pass. It's just something that's going to happen from time to time. The girl tries to control her new emotions as the days go by. With all of these new experiments they're trying on her, she's found it to be extremely difficult. Her anger is the hardest to suppress. The emotion is bottled up deep inside her, begging to be let out and set free. But she can't let that happen. It happened once when she caught a glimpse of a newspaper Leah was reading. There was a story on a young child's abduction and eventual murder. As she read it over Leah's shoulder, she could feel the anger breaking free from the cage she had locked it in. She felt the urge to kill someone. Her hands balled into fists, and she turned around and punched the wall behind her. The hole is still there in the library.

She stared at the ceiling with her arms crossed behind her head and sighed. Leah sat next to her on the soft carpeted floor, cutting some fabric with a pair of scissors. Her twin had already cut herself while working, cursing and sucking the blood off her finger. Marie only smiled and shook her head at her carelessness. These were the days she missed whenever her sister had to leave the institute. Sense Marie was out of commission at the moment, Leah had to be away for longer periods of time so she could get all of her new assignments done. She sometimes had to be gone for two or more days to do so. Marie felt extremely bad about this. Her twin already had enough on her plate and she was just adding more to it.

"Did I ever tell you about who my next victim is?" Leah had stopped cutting the fabric, putting the scissors down on one of her legs and throwing the fabric onto her sister's bed. Marie looked over at her and shook her head. Leah always liked to tell her about her new assignments. She thought it would make Marie feel better about the whole situation.

"Well," she began, "you know that man who kidnapped those women a few months ago?"

Marie nodded slowly and closed her eyes. "The one with the crooked teeth?"

"Yep," Leah replied, looking down at her sister with a sly smile. "I'm being sent to end the fucker."

William Smith. He better start running if he has any chance of getting away from Marie's twin. Marie almost laughed at the thought. There was no way he was going to escape Leah's grasp once she got him. No one has ever been able to. Hell, Marie probably couldn't either.

"What a shame," Marie breathed. "I would've liked to meet this man."

"And why is that?"

Marie shrugged and opened her eyes so she could at least see her sister with her one. "I find him kind of interesting."

Mr. Smith has always been interesting to the young girl. She couldn't tell you why exactly that was if you asked her. But, she could tell you it was mostly just fascination. Marie wanted to know what caused the man to be such a way. The young girl just simply didn't understand. She didn't understand how a human being could be so vile. She's killed them, sure, but she didn't _know_. And that bothered her more than what they did. The young girl simply wanted to understand.

"Of course _you_ would find him interesting," Leah sneered, "You've always had an interest in the mentally disturbed."

"You make it sound like it's a bad thing."

Leah chuckled and ran a hand through her sister's hair. "I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I guess it's just a shame you can never be a psychiatrist in that one asylum. You'd be perfect for the job."

"I don't think so," Marie sighed, closing her eyes with a content sigh. "I don't have the patience."

"That makes me wonder how Dr. Yan and the others deal with me and you all the time."

"Hey, they signed up to do it. We didn't make them."

And that was true. Before they lived at the institute, Marie and Leah were orphans. They didn't know what happened to their parents, but they knew one thing for sure: they were abandoned. There was no letter telling them why. The twins were simply left at the hospital. They were sent to a Home for Girls when they were about three months old. The two actually liked it there. Of course, that's all they knew, but they were treated nicely and the facility could have been considered an actual home for them. At the age of six, the twins still haven't been adopted. No one seemed to want twins. But then came Dr. Yan.

Dr. Yan was a fairly tall female with long black hair that she kept up in a tight bun. Her skin was a rich olive color that always seemed to glow in the sun. Her eyes, which were always kept behind sunglasses when she was out in public, were much like Marie's left eye. But when the twins first met her, they were kept behind her sunglasses.

"Yeah, I know," Leah said with a small sigh. "Sometimes I wish we were never picked for this."

Marie smiled softly up at her twin, reaching a hand up and caressing her cheek. "We didn't really have a choice."

They never did.

* * *

 _Dear Stephanie Yan,_

 _We haven't been able to track down subject 101-03. She's simply disappeared from our sights._

 _I don't want you sending out her sister to find her. It's best for her sister to think she's dead than to think she's alive._

 _Sincerely,_

 _John Porter_

* * *

It hurts to breathe.

The anger that has been kept in a cage has been released and was now taking over. It overpowered the sadness, the pain, the longing. It took over all her senses until it was all she could feel. She wanted to kill. She wanted to tear something apart. Her hands curled into tight fists and then uncurled as she paced the yard outside the institute. Dr. Yan watched warily from a good twelve feet away, chewing on her nails nervously. Two weeks. That's how long it's been sense her sister disappeared. Sense they found her dead body in an abandoned warehouse. Marie knew Dr. Yan was lying the first time when she told her Leah was dead. Dr. Yan was a terrible liar. But, now, with Leah's dead body lying on a cold metal table inside, Marie felt like she was going to lose it.

"Marie," Dr. Yan called from behind her. "We need to go back inside soon. It's getting late."

"Not yet," Marie growled through clenched teeth. "I'm can't go back in there right now."

She feared she would attack someone she didn't want to. She didn't even know who she wanted to actually attack. Maybe that man… _ **William Smith**_ …She would rip him to pieces if she ever got her hands on him. How he was able to bring her sister down she didn't know. In fact, she didn't want to know. She didn't want to know what he did to her before he strangled her. His hand marks were still imprinted on her twin's neck. It must have been painful. She must have felt fear in those last few moments. Did she think of Marie? Did she have any regrets? Marie would never _know_. She would never know anything!

Her pacing came to a stop. Her back was to the older woman and she looked up at the darkening sky. There was going to be another star up there. Her sister would be next to that young woman and her son. They would be holding hands and looking down at her with smiles. No more pain. Only happiness. Something every person on this earth deserves. But that just wasn't realistic. And it hurt.

"Oh Leah," Marie whimpered, bowing her head and crossing her arms over her chest. A light breeze blew through the valley, sending a shiver down her spine. Tears were streaming down her cheeks like rain, but she made no move to wipe them away. This was better than the anger. Sadness was tamer and she was able to push it away whenever she didn't want to feel its presence. But it was welcome then. It was welcomed like an old friend. An old friend who embraced the young girl and wasn't about to let her go anytime soon.

Was Leah sad? Was she even able to feel anything other than the pain? Any emotions? Marie took small comfort in thinking that she was able to feel what the typical human was able to feel. Confusion, anger, sadness. They haunted Marie to this day. And it made her feel more human. She wanted to think that her sister died being human.

"What are you thinking about?"

Marie turned her head slightly in acknowledgement, but not enough for the doctor to see what she was _feeling_. She didn't deserve to know. None of them did. "Leah died a human. The barrier you created inside her mind was broken and she died knowing what it felt like to be normal."

"Marie," Dr. Yan sighed, running a hand through her disheveled curls, "There's no way to know that for sure. All we know is that she was killed within two minutes."

"You don't know or you don't want to know?"

"What do you mean by that, Marie?"

Marie shook her head and chuckled. "You don't want to know that you failed. That there's a flaw in what you did to Leah and I all those years ago. You're afraid."

The doctor fell silent, and Marie knew she was right. The twins weren't the first ones to go through the experiments. There were others before them. Dozens. All of them had failed. All of them had to be put down because of how dangerous they became. And Dr. Yan was afraid it would happen again. The fact that Marie was able to obtain a few emotions just by seeing something as tragic as a woman taking her own life made the doctor anxious. The doctor didn't want to think about the possibility of Leah gaining the same emotions during her murder. It scared her.

"We're going to fix any flaws," Dr. Yan said in a whisper, making Marie strain to hear what she was saying. "There can't be any more mistakes."

* * *

She wasn't able to feel anything.

All the emotions, all the pain she had felt after her sister's death, were gone.

It was almost like they were never there to begin with.

And maybe that was for the best…

* * *

 **Good...Bad...meh? I'm honestly kind of proud of what I've written on here so far :) I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did while I was writing it...aka. staring at a blank screen for a good 15 minutes before I was actually able to write something hehe.**

 **Reviews are welcome...Just no flames...they will be used to cook various desserts :)**

 **Until next time!**


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